Microsoft Rejoices as Internet Explorer 6 Usage Falls Below 1%

Companies usually don’t celebrate when they lose market share. Then again, most companies don’t have to deal with consumers stubbornly sticking with a product that’s 10 years old, especially when a newer version is available for free.

That would explain why Microsoft was toasting the demise of Internet Explorer 6 today on its Windows Blog. According to Net Market Share, IE6 usage has dipped below 1% in the United States, joining other web-savvy countries such as Austria, Poland, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway.

Microsoft was desperate to move users from its outdated browser to its more modern products like Internet Explorer 9. The company even launched The Internet Explorer 6 Countdown, a website committed to ridding the world of IE6 which, with its 2.75 million visitors, seems to have made an impact.

The problem for Microsoft is that there’s no guarantee that people are upgrading their browsers or just switching to Google Chrome or Firefox. In fact, Internet Explorer is constantly losing ground, in danger of falling below 50% for the first time, while Chrome hits new highs of nearly 20%.

Microsoft has experienced the same phenomenon with Windows XP, which still has around 46.52% of the global OS market share. Both Windows XP and IE6 suffer from the same problem: They were so ubiquitous when released back in 2001 that many people simply never bothered to switch when something newer came out.

Those still using IE6 have never known the pleasures of tabs or a combined search and address bar, not to mention that they’re vulnerable to a host of online threats that more modern browsers are protected against. If you waited 20 minutes for your screen to load this page with IE6, for your own sake, please upgrade.